Instant O/O and Loadboards II

As the Song says "Cheaper 2 Keep Her"

 

I had about 6 SunDrops in the truck's fridge about 2 weeks ago, Pharm never touched one - I bought them at a truck stop about 4 miles from his place. Maybe he's SunDrop intolerant

 

We changed plans this week, and decided to run together until after the holiday. So far, I gotta say that it's been uneventful at best Even Pharm said it a few days ago, this being my first couple months out - it's been boring LOL.

Parked in Weatherford, TX right now for a few hours - due to the fact that we can't reload until morning about 6 hours away. The load location has no truck stops nearby, and a little forward planning got us a prime spot at an actual truck stop (hah!) for a change. We've been delayed plenty this week, and nowhere near any facilities every single time.

When we showed up to reload in Florida a few nights ago at 8pm - they didn't have our load number on file. This is the point that we realized our week was doomed. Called the broker, he checks it out and verifies the number we have, no luck. Tried flipping the numbers around some, and finally wind up spending the better part of 12 hours parked at a WalMart about 10 miles away. The next morning we get a call back, and the number had a 6 in the middle that should've been a 5. GRRRRRR..... Then the crank handle breaks off the tarp - because it rusted out from the inside and finally gave up.

So I head over the next morning to get loaded, and ask the guard what's the deal with the crane in the middle of the street, and the tape blocking off the area. He says, you sure you've been here before? I said yeah, I come out the way it's blocked. So he copies off a drawn map for the occasion and hands me a copy - I'm to back into the loading bay this time - no worries.

So I proceed to back in, and there's no one around at all - totally rare. I get out and walk in the building and tell them I'm backed in - they stare at me blankly. Then a lady says - you backed in? Yeah, I was told to back in because of the crane on the next street in the exit lane - even have a map from the guard shack (good thing). So she tells me - you need to turn around and head in under the catwalk so I can inspect your trailer. Here I go around and around - head in now, she checks the trailer and all is good. Then she stops me, and says the loader wants to see the map.

About that time, he comes outside flipping out about me backing in. I hand him the map, he looks it over, and scratches his head, and tells me to follow him into his office. He gets on the phone, cusses someone out, then calls someone else and plays politics, then gets back to me sitting there for the last 5 minutes. And he tells me how amazed he is at this drafted map, and the fact that a $10 an hour guard has no business telling them how they load trucks - he's been doing this 34 years and that's his job. (I'm sitting there with an amazed look on my face thinking - so what?!)

He then proceeds to tell me that he can't have the truck loaded backed in, because I wouldn't be able to hear his horn to signal me when I'm in position, and when to move. And finally asks me how I want the truck loaded - I tell him 25 tons, and about 500 pounds heavier in the rear hopper. He says fine, go get your truck in and listen for the horn. So I pull through - he loads the front hopper, then the rear, and I'm off to the scale. All I have to do is pull out forward (trucks behind me), offset to the right and back past where I came in (about 500 feet with golf carts and pickups darting all over the place). This done, I'm on the scale.

The scale tells me the tractor weighs 47k+, and I'm running on fumes already! Florida doesn't care about axle weight, but we're headed across to Texas. I check the trailer and sure enough the front hopper load is at the header, piled high on the 5th wheel. So I proceed to wake Pharm up to warn him I'm about to fly it in reverse and nail the brakes. This done (twice) I've gotten the tractor weight down to 46,300 - still with no fuel. At this point, I'm thinking - 34 years and what?! This is ####!

So I decide to roll with it, as opposed to rolling back through the train wreck to drop some and reload when it's just piled in the front of the trailer. After closing the tarp with a pair of vise-grips for a handle, I pull back onto the scale, get weighed out again, walk up to the guard shack, and get handed the wrong paperwork. The guard scrambles around for a few minutes and realizes that he sent my paperwork out with the last truck! So he proceeds to chase that driver down and have him come back - another 20 minutes of waiting.

The driver finally gets back with the paperwork, and I leave the place behind. On to the trailer yard we found the night before when the handle broke off the tarp. Called the company that owns the trailer, got it approved, and got them busy on the repairs. Decided while we were already there they need to fix the tarp handle, and the handle that broke off the landing gear about 2 months ago. So here goes another 2 hours down the drain.......

While the repairs are finishing up, I'm looking the trailer over and I see a bright spot on a trailer tire, and it's the belts. I walk back into the yard office, and ask them about used tires in town. They call around and find a place with a pile of lo-pros, and the time to change one. Another call to the trailer company, and fill the guy in, explaining that it's weird wear - the tires probably bad because the one next to it is fine. He tells me to have that changed out - belts showing can't be run - gives me the 20 question routine, and tells me to keep the tire that comes off with the trailer. After about an hour at the tire shop across town, we leave that place with a clean matched tire on the trailer, the old tire duct taped to my muffler support, and handles to work the trailer - phew.

The whole ordeal cost the trailer company about $340, and we were down an extra 18 hours for the repairs, and the waiting time. We knew we wouldn't see the domino's that fell because of that until the week played out, and here we are - sitting in TX waiting *18* extra hours to get loaded on a Friday morning - to make a 22 hour drive to OH - with an unload at 11pm Sunday at the earliest possible slot (and no possible reload until sometime Monday morning somewhere at the earliest). So now we're looking at another 34 hour reset somewhere up North in the cold (idling or motel) - wow! Should've gone with plan A this week after all - Tiny has been more of an RV than a commercial vehicle so far this trip!

All I can say is, I've asked about detention pay or ? a few times and there's no possible good answer. We're basically spinning our wheels this week - out here breaking even and burning time.

I'd like to have a better outlook, but we're getting near my next service on the truck again - and it needs a lube already (again). On top of that, I have a rotted pair of front air bags that I haven't even ordered yet ($400 just for parts), the plates coming up due in a couple weeks ($1,600), and we've been running as much as we can get. This deal was set for a month, and trying to split pay and a half (maybe) between 2 drivers AND get a truck fixed. I just hope something good happens, because so far it's looking far worse instead of better this week. All this with me driving 500 miles round trip to the house every time we roll the truck back in to Pharm's. Something has got to give, and I hope it's luck and money!

Someone post something positive - we could use a good laugh out here - anything to get us through another weekend stuck in a truck away from home and family! Best to you all and keep it safe out there!!

 

Boy, thanks for the update. I enjoyed reading it, but feel for you guys and all the lost time, headaches and such. Didn't know Larry Curly and Moe ran the place where you loaded. What a comedy in and of itself. At the time I'm sure you were ready to wring a neck or two. I know I'd sure be. I've had an uneventful day and hopefully tomorrow will be the same. That is positive in it's own right!
Hope things get settled into place. I got some bills due like you, so it's run, run, run. Kind of tough when you want to be back for Thanksgiving and all that stuff. Now that I think about it, my wife's family is coming over for Turkey Day....maybe I will "be on the road"

Take care guys and keep after it!

 

Hang in there Hwy!

It'll pick up. It's going to start snowing like mad in a month or so, you'll be hauling salt all over the place.

 

alright dont ask me how i found this and if im breaking a rule in the forum im sorry but this has to be shown.....I found out where pharms been hiding for the last few weeks apparently hes been making dance videos for youtube i dont know what the lyrics mean but tell me what ya'll think...sorry pharm but ur busted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ8IGEcrPxA&feature=related

 

ok ok, so theres this plane, and it's loosing altitude.. so the pilot comes over the radio and says, "i'm sorry but we have a problem lady and gentlemen, we are loosing altitude and we can't not gain any. we have already dumped all of the cargo and we are still going down.. so we are now about to start dropping passangers.. i'm sorry to say it, but we're gonna have to do it in alphabetical order... please bare with me, we're going to start with all of the A's...................................................................... guy jus told me that about an hour ago.. there's more to it.. a whole lot more, but i can only hope that everyone has heard it already.

 

pharm if thats a new carrer choice id definetly go back to trucking!!!!!at least you can hide behind the wheel roflmao

 

mitchtazz - you're gonna have to share the rest of that joke with us - I may have heard it, but I don't remember it just yet.

The load we picked up on Friday afternoon in TX had a Monday delivery date in OH - which was a 23 hour trip, leaving us about a day and a half to spare doing nothing. I looked over the trip route, and realized it took us right past MO, which is where I moved from last November.

So after twisting Pharm's arm enough, and making a few phone calls, I'd come up with a way to burn off the offending hours in some constructive way - PARTY!

We ended up hanging out with some longtime friends of mine at the lake, drinking like fish, and catching an hour of boating in the process. Pharm said he had a great time, enjoyed my friends, and thought it was a great place to be.

On the sad side, my friends 12 year old chocolate labrador Zoe looked sick when we'd gotten to their house Saturday afternoon, and we had to go looking for her later that night. She'd walked off to find a final spot in the woods near the house, and we found her later.

I'd known the dog as long as I've known my friends, about 8 years, and I was just glad to be able to see her alive one last time. Pharm helped find her in the woods, and also helped carry her to the van, and then rode with us to a family members' place to place her in the workshop away from the house and kids. My friends 2 girls didn't take it so well, and I'm hoping they'll find some peace soon.

I guess after that we took on the Irish wake tradition, and we all got trashed and had a decent night. There wasn't much we could do to change what happened, and no sense to wasting the night (Zoe was all about a party and having fun anyway - and having her belly rubbed LOL).

We thanked our friends for their hospitality, and Pharm's got some new friends in MO now. After calling a cab (no one was safe driving at that point), we got dropped at the truck at about 3:30am and crashed out for the night. I woke up at around 11:30, ran a quick pre-trip, and got us underway. We're about 3 hours from our drop, high-tailing it through Ohio - while the scales are closed and the traffic is sleeping.

As much as I enjoy being in Georgia, it'll always take a second seat to Missouri - I found it first and home is where your friends are.

It looks like this week may have broken us over the top, and if not we're at an ultimatum. We both have to run our own trucks to avoid the pitfalls we had to sit through this week in the same truck. Pharm's truck has to come online again, and mine needs a trailer - one way or another, the next steps are needed to keep us both running.

One thing this has all driven home - trucks are like sharks - feed them or they eat you instead!

Hope everyone out there had a good week, and stayed in the black, Monday is on us again!

 

thanx for the update man sorry to hear about the dog I have a doberman whos like my best friend i dont know what i would do with out him. at least pharm is meeting new people out there and glad u guys had a good time.... when is he getting his truck back up and going?